Imagine you are Lewis Hamilton.

Now imagine that the international Formula One authorities have told you that henceforth you will no longer be able to race in your McLaren, but will have to pick up a bog-standard F1 car every time you compete.

Oh, and add to that the fact that you will no longer be setting out from the grid in company with the rest of the field, but with just one of your opponents.

Victory will have to be earned by totting up points from a long sequence of one-on-one contests.

Are you a happy Hamilton?

No.

Thought not.

So now imagine the emotions of the British women who have established themselves as undisputed queens of the Yngling sailing class - Olympic gold medallists, double world champions - as they wait for official confirmation tomorrow that the sailing authorities are effectively capsizing them.

The ruling Council of the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) will vote today at its annual conference in Madrid on proposals to drop the Yngling class from the next Olympics and replace it with a new keelboat, the Elliott 6m.

It is also proposed that the new class will become the only one of the 10 sailing events scheduled for the London 2012 venue at Weymouth that will involve head-to-head match racing rather than the traditional fleet racing.


Which leaves Sarah Webb, Pippa Wilson and skipper Sarah Ayton facing the prospect of seeing almost everything they have worked on for the last four years stripped away.

No wonder they are currently Three Blondes in a Quandary.

Only 50-50 chance of trio staying together

If the proposals are rubber-stamped, as seems likely, Webb believes the chances of the British trio staying together for London 2012 are no more than 50-50.

And she herself is not certain she would be there at all as a sailor.

"We have had to put our ambitions on hold until this decision is announced, and if it goes as we expect we are going to have to do a lot of real soul-searching in the next few days," said Webb, the eldest of the trio at 31.

"Ideally, whatever the decision, we would sit down and decide to go for gold again as a team in London.

"But to be perfectly honest I'm unsure about what will happen now.

"I would say it is 50-50.

"Are the Olympic rings still in our eyes?"

"We might think about entering London 2012 in different boats - I might crew in the 470 category, or maybe go into the Lasers, while Sarah and Pippa might think of helming in the 470s.

"But we will have to decide first whether the Olympic rings are still in our eyes.

"And I will have to think whether I want to be at the London 2012 Games as a competitor or in some other capacity."

The British trio, who reign supreme in their event, would have to learn a completely new set of skills and tactics for match racing.

They would also be unable to develop their own boat for racing, something they have done brilliantly in the space of the last four years with technical input from the British team.

"In the last four years, 80 per cent of our time has been spent in developing our boat's speed," Webb said.

"In match racing, we wouldn't have that."

The adoption of the Elliott 6m boat, she believes, would also create a potential problem over the trio's racing weight. In Bejing it was was around 190kg in total, and they fear they may not be as effective in the new boat, which would require them to be right up to the maximum allowable limit of 205kg.

Webb and her team-mates returned from Madrid on Wednesday with a deepened sense of frustration after losing out for the second year running at the Rolex World Sailor of the Year Award.


While Britain's Ben Ainslie, who won a third Olympic gold this summer, took the men's award for the third time, the women's crew who have dominated their class for the last four years were overlooked.

"I thought we did enough to win it last year after we won every event," Webb said.

"So it was doubly disappointing this time."

"Everyone thinks it's the wrong decision"

"We were talking to a lot of other sailors while we were in Madrid and everyone thinks it is a wrong decision," Webb added.

"But no one is going to be man enough to admit it is a mistake and try to reverse it.

"I've no idea why the international federation is doing this - presumably to try and appeal to a wider spectatorship.

"But it will ruin Olympic racing for women in this class, and it will also kill the match-racing circuit which exists outside the Olympics now.

"It's a very friendly competition now.

"A lot of the people who race are part-time. But once it becomes an Olympic category the atmosphere will become cut-throat and unsociable."

The ISAF Councillors, a venerable crowd, have on occasions asserted their will by refusing to accept the recommendations of their expert sub-committees, as they did in refusing to include the Tornado class in the 2012 Games.

But it looks ominously as though a week that has already produced one downer for Webb and Co is going to get worse rather than better.

"I think the decision is going to be a formality," Webb commented.

Surely there has to a silver lining somewhere?

Well, things seem to be going more smoothly for the Three Blondes off the water.

Ayton has just returned from honeymoon with Olympic windsurfer Nick Dempsey, having spent a couple of weeks touring the Highlands in a camper van accompanied by the couple's dog, Ringo.

Webb, meanwhile, can take her mind off the ISAF blazer brigade by planning for her imminent wedding to fellow sailor Adam Gosling, son of the man who co-founded NCP car parks, Sir Don Gosling.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now freelancing and will be writing regularly for insidethegames